Anyways, my sister and I ventured to the butcher on Saturday and bought 2 full racks of baby back ribs, yummmm!! I have only ever eaten ribs at a restaurant or when my dad makes them. So this weekend I was on a mission to make some of the best fall of the bone ribs that I have ever had, and I succeeded. Here is how I did it:
- The ribs themselves from the Butcher in my area were high quality baby back ribs. The butcher cut the ribs in half for me at the store, so I ended up with 4, 1/2 racks of ribs, making it a lot easier to handle on and off the grill
- I used my own variation of an Alton Brown's rib rub, added a generous amount of the rub and salt to the ribs the day before, wrapped them in aluminum meat side down, and let them sit in the fridge over night
- When putting the coals on the grill, with a lot of help from Mike so that I don't burn down the deck, I put all of it in the little coal containers and pushed them as far to the sides as possible, this was so i could set the ribs in the middle and not have them right on the direct heat and burn or overcook them
- Took the ribs out of the fridge, dried them off, put each half rack in their own aluminum pouch with a little garlic, salt, and pepper, a generous amount of apple cider vinegar (1/2 - 3/4 cup), made sure the ribs were meat side down, and sealed them up for the grill! (meat side down through this whole process is huge, it makes for the best fall-off-the-bone style ribs!)
- Once the coals were hot and on the edges of the grill, I put the 4 1/2 racks down in the middle, leaving them on the grill for 2.5 hours, checking every now and then. The smell was amazing once that vinegar and rub starting simmering together
- In the meantime, I made asparagus sauteed in herb/garlic olive oil and 3 baked potatoes (2 sweet for me and mike, and one regular for my sister because she is too good for sweet potatoes) which I put on the grill once there was about an hour left on the ribs. When doing baked potatoes on the grill, spray the aluminum with cooking spray and sprinkle some salt in it as well. Wrap the potato in that aluminum and put off the direct heat of the grill for about an hour for white potatoes, 45 minutes for sweet ones!
- Once the ribs had been on for 2.5 hours, I took them off, removed them from the pouch, and covered each 1/2 rack in a different BBQ sauce. We had a spicy one, a Carolina one, and a reg sweet BBQ sauce. I slathered each of the racks in the sauce on the meat side only
- Meanwhile, Mike started up a new set of coals, to keep the grill nice and hot, and added some wood-chips to it so that we could finish the ribs in sauce with a little smoky flavor
- Once the smoke was going, and the new coals were on, I put the 4 1/2 racks back on the grill, bone side down this time, to let the BBQ sauce soak in and char them up a little. They were so fall off the bone, that getting them back on the grill without having them fall apart was a challenge (a great challenge to have, of course)
- After about 15 more minutes of letting them take in the smoke and heat on the grill, it was time to eat! The potatoes and asparagus finished at this same time too, making for an amazing, and delicious meal!
It may seem like a lot of prep-work for the ribs, but it was all totally worth it. The salt and rub soak over night and the steaming on the grill in vinegar for a long time with low heat are what makes the ribs as fall-off-the-bone as they were. The biggest challenge for me was keeping the aluminum pouches from leaking (I had to do a few layers of aluminum), and dealing with the coals for this long. Mike was a lifesaver on the grill, as well as with the BBQ sauces (it was his idea to try a few different kinds, which proved to be a great way to do it). Me, Mike, and my sister had a HUGE feast of ribs, potatoes, and asparagus, proving it impossible to move for the next 2-3 hours once we finished :-) Now that is my kind of Sunday night!!
